Sayings from the South

While we traveled around, getting my medical training, we lived in the south for several years. Being born and raised in the west, I was not used to the colorful adjustments many people in the south have made to English, or at least, the ways they speak that are so different from the way I grew up speaking. That caused me to be aware of things people said that I thought were interesting. Now, years later, as I look back at what I thought was interesting, it is as much a comment about my naïveté as how people, many of them poor and uneducated, spoke.

Here are a few interesting examples of things people said that I found worth keeping a note of:

An 84 year-old man came in with a severe nose bleed. He was very upset and told the nurse, “I’m bleeding to death! Get a doctor in here that will give me a shot of coagulant.” (There is no such thing as a “shot of coagulant.)

A young woman came in complaining of a “bad infection in my grinder.” (vagina)

A lady with seizures told me she was on “Die-lay’-tuns” and “Tri’-ger-talls” (Dilantin and Tegretol)

A patient walking along the side of the road told me he “div” into the ditch to avoid being hit by a car. (dived or dove)

“I had rech up for a pair of shoes and my chest started to hurt.” (reached)

A man, complaining about his girl friend not being able to have an orgasm said, “She’s cum hung.”

“I droove over to my cousin’s house.” (drove)

An 88 year-old lady who didn’t want her sweater turned inside out got upset with my efforts to help her with her clothes and said, “Don’t put it inerds, outerds.”